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Mats Sundin would never have spoken out in the manner in which Jose Bautista did after baseball’s trade deadline passed. It wasn’t in his nature to publicly question those he worked for.

Sundin would have been private about it, as he was most years with the Maple Leafs, even biting his tongue through the John Ferguson era, which wasn’t easy to do.

What Bautista did to Alex Anthopoulos on Thursday by speaking out about the inability of the Blue Jays to acquire anyone at the trade deadline may have come from the heart and may have been truthful. For honesty, applaud him.

For his disrespect, though, question him. On his worst day, Anthopoulous would never throw Bautista under the bus. It isn’t his style. It isn’t how he chooses to communicate. In fact, when informed of what Bautista did, Anthopoulos said he was glad his players are passionate about winning and doesn’t want them to be satisfied with the status quo.

Sometimes it comes down to how you deliver the message. If Bautista had a problem with what Anthopoulos didn’t do, maybe the first person he should have gone to was his general manager.

THIS AND THAT

The Leafs plan to allow Morgan Rielly to find his place, rather than push him too far, too soon, in his second NHL season. Too many young defencemen regress in their sophomore year. Rielly is expected to start on the Leafs third pair alongside Cody Franson. And he will get power play time. The other projected pairings are Dion Phaneuf with stay-at-home Roman Polak and Jake Gardiner learning from veteran Stephane Robidas. Which means Phaneuf moves back to left defence instead of playing his off side ... If you do the math, the Leafs will be paying Daniel Winnik, Mike Santorelli, David Booth and Petri Kontiola $5 million for the coming season, which translates to half a million less than the Florida Panthers are paying David Bolland ... Some misinformation on Winnik’s signing, attributing it to the Leafs front office signing of Kyle Dubas, has been out there. The truth: The Leafs started negotiating with Winnik on July 1. On that date he wanted too much money for their liking. When he came down to $1.3 million, the Leafs made a deal with him. The negotiations started before Dubas joined the Leafs organization ... Keep hearing that fired Leaf Claude Loiselle is a legitimate candidate to replace the man who fired him, Brendan Shanahan, at the NHL head office ... Fired Dave Poulin has told people that the best conversation he had with Shanahan was the one in which he got fired. Poulin pretty much knew he was getting fired. Before that, they hardly spoke at all.

HEAR AND THERE

Life doesn’t usually make sense but the negotiations between P.K. Subban and the Montreal Canadiens were indeed curious, especially because after all the noise they did make sense in the end. Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin played the hardliner role, just as he had two years ago, beginning at arbitration with the ridiculously low figure of $5.2 million. And when it was assumed that Subban would sign a one-year deal out of the unnecessary arbitration, it was also assumed there would be the natural post-negotiation animosity. So Subban signs for eight years and $72 million — the kind of contract he is deserving of, and I wonder who or what got to Bergevin, who changed his mind, why the arbitration process was necessary to come to a somewhat obvious agreement (even higher than some imagined) ... And now we can once again put to rest the Subban-wants-to-play-in-Toronto theory. And with it the Subban-wants-to-play-with-Steven Stamkos-in-Toronto theory. They can play together. In the summers ... The only way 75-year-old Don Matthews can help the Montreal Alouettes is if he can find a way to bring either Doug Flutie or Anthony Calvillo back to play quarterback for him ... The Red Sox starting rotation a year ago: Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jake Peavy, Felix Doubront and Ryan Dempster. Now, all of them gone ... A where-were-you moment from 35 years ago when you heard that Thurman Munson’s plane had crashed and he was dead. I was in the newsroom of the London Free Press. The Blue Jays were in their third season of play ... Now pitching for the Detroit Tigers: Cy Young ... Frank Thomas played only 7% of his big league career for the Blue Jays — and it didn’t exactly end well — so that was awfully nice of him to acknowledge media relations man Jay Stenhouse and travelling secretary Mike Shaw in his Hall of Fame speech.

SCENE AND HEARD

Toronto didn’t seem to like it when J.P. Ricciardi ran the Blue Jays but never moved here. But hardly a peep that Brendan Shanahan and Dave Nonis run the Maple Leafs and neither has settled here ... I would love to see the Canadian Football Hall of Fame reach out to the family of the late Cookie Gilchrist and re-elect Gilchrist to the Hall. Gilchrist was elected but never inducted in the Hall because he refused to show up for the induction. Enough time has passed to right a two-sided wrong ... You know this is a crappy CFL season when a 50-50 payout in Edmonton is the biggest news of the campaign ... If Larry Tanenbaum and friends want an NFL team, why not spend your billion on the Jacksonville Jaguars or another team and move them rather than do the difficult dance with the Buffalo Bills? And imagine the rivalry if Toronto and Buffalo could be in the NFL simultaneously? ... I was really happy for DeMar DeRozan to be selected for Team USA this summer until Paul George broke his leg. Then it hit me: How messed up would the Raptors be if DeRozan had a similar injury? ... In the our new world, brought to you by social media, George gets injured, has surgery and we don’t wait for an update from his team, his country, his agent. Nope. Instead we get a tweet from his hospital bed: “I’ll be OK.” ... More information from social media we can’t live without: Bruno Caboclo’s favourite player happens to be George ... Oh, for the good old days. Last night, Ottawa vs. Saskatchewan. And why couldn’t it be Rough Riders vs. Roughriders? ... He can play on my team: Drew Willy.

AND ANOTHER THING

I hope this isn’t true but I keep hearing that Joe Bowen won’t be doing any Leafs games on television this season. Radio only, I’m told, for the voice of the Leafs. ... This is true: The entire Eastern Division of the CFL has a 1-11 record on the road. The first-place Argos have the only win ... Playing on my radio: Hagood Hardy. Brings back memories ... Never mind Dustin Johnson’s problems, Sergio Garcia shot 27 on the back nine Friday in Ohio, which may not rival Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points but it has to be darn close ... If given a choice between The Sheik and The Iron Sheik as a wrestling heel, I’ll take the car salesman Sheik every time ... David Ortiz, Big Papi. Yoenis Cespedes, L’il Papi ... Weird stat: The Oakland A’s have not had a single rookie in their lineup this season ... Now that Esmil Rogers is gone the Jays have nothing to show for trading John Farrell to the Red Sox. But there is some solace seeing Benedict Farrell in last place, for us small people, semi-vindictive even after a World Series win ... Funny, Ed Stefanski gets a gig but no sign of Bryan Colangelo anywhere in the NBA yet? ... Got through 1,700 words without mentioning Johnny Manziel ... Still available: Tyler Seguin’s roommate, Michael Del Zotto ... Born on this date: Haystacks Calhoun. And a happy birthday to Tom Brady (37), Dominic Moore (34), Marcel Dionne (63), Jim Gott (55), Jesse Lumdsen (32), Marv Levy (89) and Tony Bennett (88) ... And hey, whatever became of Steve Lombardi?

RAY AVERAGE WHEN IT COMES TO WINS

Ricky Ray is the only sure-thing Hall of Fame quarterback in the CFL right now.

But when it comes to winning games, he is surprisingly ordinary and certainly no Doug Flutie.

Ray started his 30th regular-season game with the Argos on Friday night in Montreal and despite all his wonderful numbers, and despite throwing just about the most catchable football of all time, he has just 15 wins and 15 losses over three regular seasons in Toronto.

That’s it for the current face of the CFL.

Flutie’s record with the Argos over two seasons was 27-9 with a spectacular Toronto team. And if you look south, you see quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning with remarkable numbers. Manning is 163-73 as an NFL starter. Brady is 148-43 in his time in New England.

Somehow Ray doesn’t translate to victories the same way as other legends do.

JAYS WON’T SHUT DOWN PITCHING PAIR

The Blue Jays have no intention of pulling a Stephen Strasburg on either Marcus Stroman or Drew Hutchison.

In other words, they are not about to shut down either Stroman or Hutchison, who will both pitch more innings this season than they have pitched before as professionals.

The assumption many have made is that the Jays have determined how many innings Stroman and Hutchison will be allowed to pitch from now to the end of the regular season. GM Alex Anthopoulos has been clear that both pitchers are within acceptable innings numbers right now — and that will maintain itself for the remainder of the season.

Stroman has thrown 109.1 innings between Toronto and Buffalo. The most he has thrown in a season before is 111.2. Stroman would be scheduled to make 10 more starts, which would have him pitching around 180 innings.

Hutchison has already pitched 122 innings coming off Tommy John surgery. The most he had previously thrown is 149.1 innings. The 180 number probably works him for him, too.

In controversial fashion, the Washington Nationals shut down Strasburg after 159 innings two years ago.

TRADES DIDN’T MAKE SENSE FOR JAYS

So who exactly was Alex Anthopoulos supposed to trade for?

Jon Lester? For 10 starts and maybe, if the rotation works out properly, for a wild card start? And then goodbye.

That would have cost him Marcus Stroman and more. The Jays had no Yoenis Cespedes to deal. There was no real match with Boston.

David Price? Same thing, although Tampa made something of a lousy deal. They didn’t come away with Wil Myers and David Odorizzi like they did for James Shields and company. Tampa wound up with Drew Smyly, the pitching equivalent this year to Drew Hutchison. And more. The Jays would have had to start with Aaron Sanchez or Stroman in return, before fattening the offer.

There was no logical match with Tampa.

John Lackey? The Cardinals gave up a big-league hitter and a big-league pitcher for the 35-year-old starter. With Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey in the rotation, Lackey didn’t seem like a fit in Toronto.

Maybe they could have gotten 29-year-old Andrew Miller, but that would have cost them their No. 1 minor league prospect, Daniel Norris or Sanchez. Do you give up a pitcher you believe in going forward for a middle reliever?

So, yes there is disappointment and some anger in Blue Jays land but we repeat: In this season of so much promise, what was Anthopoulos to do?

Jays' Bautista should have expressed dissatisfaction privately

Mats Sundin would never have spoken out in the manner in which Jose Bautista did after baseball’s trade deadline passed. It wasn’t in his nature to publicly question those he worked for.

Sundin would have been private about it, as he was most years with the Maple Leafs, even biting his tongue through the John Ferguson era, which wasn’t easy to do.

What Bautista did to Alex Anthopoulos on Thursday by speaking out about the inability of the Blue Jays to acquire anyone at the trade deadline may have come from the heart and may have been truthful. For honesty, applaud him.

For his disrespect, though, question him. On his worst day, Anthopoulous would never throw Bautista under the bus. It isn’t his style. It isn’t how he chooses to communicate. In fact, when informed of what Bautista did, Anthopoulos said he was glad his players are passionate about winning and doesn’t want them to be satisfied with the status quo.